Britain Buys Water Cannons; Fears Civil Unrest From Government Workers

The British government has just invested in water cannons because they are fearing the rising tide of civil unrest as austerity is forcing the reduction of state workers and their pensions. I have been warning that unemployment will rise, but this time it is going to flow more so from the state and municipal workers. In the UK, hundreds of thousands have took to the streets to protest against the austerity measures of the government. Prime Minister Cameron has no choice for this is the collapse of socialism. Those who think I am anti-poor or whatever, are missing the point. It is the rising cost of government that is out of control and NO LEVEL of tax increase can reverse this trend.

The British unions called for strikes nationwide. Teachers, firemen and civil servants joined the calls and and took the streets demonstrating for higher wages and pensions. Just where is this money supposed to come from they really have no idea. They merely argue to take it from someone else no matter what and give it to them.

According to the unions more than one million people took part in the strike. About one-fifth of state employees have taken part in the strikes. Indeed, the majority had appeared on the job to maintain “almost all key areas of public service” functions. The interesting question this presents if everything can function with one-fifth less, then does this suggest that government can be run with far less people? Nonetheless, some 6,000 schools did remain closed, which was about one quarter of all schools in England. The strikes also impacted museums, libraries and garbage (refuse) collection in some cities. At the airports, such as international London Heathrow and Luton, there were delays because parts of the ground crew were on strike. Around 12 percent of government employees in Scotland joined the strike. Also in Northern Ireland and Wales there were many public institutions – including schools, courts and job centers – that had also closed on Thursday.

Public employees do not care where the money comes from, they refuse cuts and demand their pensions. This is similar to what happened in Rome where the army, when unpaid, just began sacking their own cities to grab whatever they had being justified as the army deserves it.

The central demands of the workers were against the austerity policy of the British government. In 2010, the salaries were frozen in the public service first. Then in 2012 an annual wage increase was written down by one percent. Governments are going broke because they promised pension and failed to fund it always assuming there would be ample tax revenues available.

Effectively, in Britain there was a two-year pay freeze, and then the 3rd year comes another freeze followed by a one-percent wage increase.

What is the justification to even allow public sevice unions in the 21st century? They can just blackmail the politicians into giving them what they want, politicians have more to fear from them, than from anonymous taxpayers.

geez water cannons ??? what about DHS with thousands of MRAPs,billions of hollow point ammo, thousands of ar-15's. Man, the English have it good...her majesties gubbermint are not planning for high end domestic COIN warfare like here in the good ol US mofo of A. Geesh

Bitterwolf - In the United States we are about four years behind Britain. There are going to be a lot of pissed off pensioners. Lot of unhappy people also receiving shrinking benefits in draconian fashion. First it mainly was by inflation and now during the deflation phase of the bust are and will see here decreased benefits, less medicine and procedures covered under Medicare and Medicaid and higher healthcare costs (Obamacare).

What is happening slowly but surely is rationing. $40 a week food stamps will keep you alive with basics like bread, milk, eggs, poultry but it isnt a picnic, people here that think they are eating lobster are not correct (That was the late 1990's). Better eats than the Soviet collapse I suppose. Anybody think of a new brand name for America yet? Like Soviets, we'll change it to 2.0 of some kind. I am weary of false flag to justify the final last killing of the social contract. I hope I am wrong.

China is new reserve currency and part of that job is global policeman. There role will increase (Chinese defense stocks smart buy and hold) as ours decreases like the previous reserve currency host - Great Britain. See the arguments in the early 1930's there about cuts in the navy for example.

I suspect cuts for government personell in these ranges:

Military: 40%
Intelligence: 15% (the NSA evil memo while true is more about the coming budget pruning CIA are top dogs only so much to go around).
Education: 20%
Pension and Benefit Reduction in General: 30% (we devalued 30% already in the last 8 years. That is draconian indeed but it has/had to happen to restructure our economy. Of course the politicians are not telling the people directly but that is what is shaking out in real terms.

Then the bust will be over. Do you think those DHS bullets are for bloggers? Please. Maybe one nutcase out of thousand.

A risk to serious journalist and owners is imprisonment during civil unrest to keep them silent and use them as forced labor to make widgets for a time until order is restored. Time will tell, hope I am wrong on this last part but history is replete with examples...

So ya truth telling in such times is truly a revolutionary act. Have the intent to care for ALL people and individually you'll benefit more and suffer less.

It is over, taking from the private sector to fund the public sector and to print money to account for the difference.

Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. In many countries they rob from everyone to give to .gov and those who won't work for minimum wages as they feel they are entitled to more.

Meanwhile governments keep buying war toys, which aren't cheap. America has more military mucle with its weapons of mass destruction that they could have imagined in World War Two. Why? No one is attacking them and the USA is now funding the people they accuse of 9/11.

Uh huh. If trained jackboots armed with automatic weapons show up at your door and demand your guns, you're going to tamely hand them over. What're you gonna do... fight back with an unwieldy fucking hunting rifle with your kids in the line of fire? Sure you are. But don't worry. For that exact reason, the .gov isn't going to bother taking your guns. Fat-ass office workers armed with hunting gear that gets used once a year are not going to kick ass on trained men with modern military hardware. The jackboots know it, and they are not scared of you and your gun.

There are 14.6 million licensed hunters and many of them have those "unwieldy *unking hunting rifles" with scopes and .308/30-06 caliber. My guess is you know very little about hunting rifles. You sound like a lib with your "automatic weapons" meme.

How many AR 15's have been sold to citizens in the past 6 years? My guess is about 5 to 9 million. Fat-ass office workers? LOL! Like the Boston lockdown. Who could not find a kid hiding in a boat? Go F yourself.

The UK just launched a new aircraft carrier. They have no planes to fly from it, and forgot to order new supply tankers when they switched to diesel engines from nuclear. They also don't have enough support ships in the navy to make a carrier group.

Oh, and they ordered a second one just in case. Prime Minister Brown's idea, just to keep some employment in his town.

As far as I remember, the British never have enough money for bullets or shells.

Interestingly, they also removed the Guards' barracks from near to Parliament and Buckingham Palace so they could sell the land. They moved them 30 miles away. Now that's rapid response. I think they are supposed to catch a London bus into town if ther's any trouble.

LOL...the government needs to look at the bright side. These people willingly disarmed themselves YEARS AGO. So what difference does it make? Let them bitch, whine, and gnash their teeth while the Bobbys spray them down with royal ecoli water from the Thames.

They've forgotten one very important thing - We've got water hose pipe bans. When they come back and the people see big gov pissing it around the Street's - that in itself will start a riot.

They should probably mount the BoE printers on trucks and spray sheets of the Queen's own loo paper at'em, probably would improve the economy better than QE and soon stop the cohorts of unhappy followers. That or water will be $100/oz and people will come with empty buckets ready.

Well I agree with you in as much as the government doesn't care for anything but its control and self interest; the rest including tax paying minions are white noise to them. The side effect of robbing them through taxation is to pretend through democracy they are listening, a small price to pay for any gov wanting control.

The economic news flowing from the UK has been spun to give the impression of robust growth. How do you explain the pick up in growth to a mature country that has been struggling under debt? In general the UK economy is not particularly competitive, over-weighted in the service sector and global finance it is vulnerable to problems that surface throughout the world.

As usual we must look deeper into the facts to get a clear picture of what is really happening. It now appears much of the recent strength comes from the fact that thousands of Britons are receiving compensation for Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). Most Americans reading about the pickup in Britain's economy never even heard of the PPI. The total paid out so far, £13.3bn or about 22 billion American dollars has been a huge economic boost. More about this in the article below.

It is also the chinese buying up all the real estate and companies. The financial sector french all moved to London last year. The italians, greeks and spanish all moved their money into London property because it wasn't save in their banks, and the swiss are too scared to take it now.

The UK's balance of payments (imports against exports) deficit is completely out of control. When the City of London crashes -or even just wobbles- , Uk is done for. The people will probably be mildly annoyed.

Of all the places where the State seeks "less than lethal" alternatives to its usual methods... this one makes the least sense.

Unless one flavor of "dead protester" has a significantly higher "terror" value to the masses, the economic case is straight forward- DEAD PUBLIC EMPLOYEES require no payroll, no pension, no severance and no healthcare payments and they are just about as productive as living public sector employees. Every dead .gov troll is revenue positive for the struggling State.

All developed world governments have promised too many bennies and instead of saving contributions to pay out future bennies to retirees - they spent those along the way too. Anyone doing this (except governments) would be thrown in jail. I do not see programs like Social Security ending (you really cannot cut off and starve seniors), but I do see more cases like the City of Detroit retirees where fat government pensions are going to get cut back - especially above a certain dollar threshold. (Brace yourself California government employees). So yes, it is appropriate to buy water cannons to use against government employees - because they are the next easy target on the government's money grab agenda.

yea, the gov sure does have themselves in a bind. It wouldnt be so hard to let the public employees go if the same gov didnt kill the the private sector jobs through regulation and tax breaks, no one not even the government likes compitition.

Actually, California has already dealt with the problem; in the worst way possible. All, ALL, workers in California pay into CalPERS. Non public workers will only get benefits if there is any left over after paying public employees their benefits (which cannot be reduced).

My father was a councillor for years, along with various businessmen, millowners and others who felt that they could offer their experience and abilities to the community that had provided for them.

Up until about 1974 these well meaning and benevolent souls turned out to meetings and managed committees in their own time without any thought to the costs that they were expending from their own pockets.

I was quite surprised to hear my father say he was not going to stand again for re-election, so I asked him why.

His response was very, very prescient.

"They're going to start paying us to attend meetings, sit on committees, and pay us travel expenses and subsistance."

"All they'll achieve is to attract the wrong kind of people, world improvers, socialists, failed school teachers and union shop stewards to name but a few who haven't yet realised that there arn't any free lunches, somebody has to pay"

WAS HE EVER RIGHT. We are paying to be told how to live our lives by a bunch of proffessional political parasites.

I guess it's not cricket when you've disarmed the population. So they have to make terrorizing the populace into submission look like a fun filled day at the water park. It's easier for the presstitutes to spoon feed wet t-shirts than blood to the sheep.

The banksters want war to get rid of the underclass, they just don't know how far they can push it without harming themselves. Ukraine appears to be the testing ground for the future depopulation of the world.

In my life, I've discovered that too many government employees have a reverse correlation of pay grade and IQ; the Peter Principle personified. I'm sure that is true on a global basis. Wonder how many of the Brit civil servants wish they had the 2nd Amendment?

Are these people serious in believing that a water cannon can tame an unruly mob?

And do they honestly believe that even the police won't turn on their masters?

And then when they are in control they will soon realise thst pensions cannot be funded by stripping the rich but by stripping the size of government. A classic catch 22. The retired worker v the worker.

Martin Armstrong is only an under cover rogue capitalist. He is totally blind for reality since he is only working with theoretical models and conceptions which includes heaps of history and his interpretation of it. Indeed, Armstrong is a blablabla very arrogant person.

This is a muddled article. Sure, British public sector workers have always pulled their labour for higher wages and they certainly don't give a rat's ass where the money comes from. They just want more. It has always been thus in Britain. After all, they're overwhelmingy selfish Lefties who would really like to re-nationalise everything so they could hold the country to ransom and convert Britain into a fully fledged commie state, as we saw emerging in the 1960s/70s.

In 2009 I said that if Cameron won the 2010 election, he would have the opportunity of a lifetime to seriously downsize government and slash state spending. I had in mind closing down 2-3 ministries because they're surplus to requirements and slashing back some of the larger alphabet agencies of the State. EG: UK Border Agency, which has 25,000 staff but still cannot control immigration into the UK, whilst giving many foreign tourists a hard time at airports. Sadly, instead of implementing real austerity like that, Cameron chose to salami slice everybody including public sector workers' wages. Tough luck on them. What about savers??

Armstrong writes: "Prime Minister Cameron has no choice for this is the collapse of socialism."

This is bunkum. Today, Britain is more to the Left than it's ever been. One look at the economy and its growing closeness to The State says everything. The centre of political gravity is to the Left in Britain. And just because Cameron is slightly to the Right of Red Ed Miliband, does not make him Right of Centre. No way. He is actually a Liberal Left Prime Minister. And therein lies the crisies of British politics :: All our major political parties are Left of Centre in varying degrees.

Yep two large boxes off Daz washing powder, that water canon be sitting in 100ft mound off foam, no one going anywhere.

Be interesting to see the kind off service the police will recieve from health, unemployment, fire or any other goverment service if they use them on effectively their own. ( Hear it wasnt to good in the 70s and back then people had more morals.)

A large percentage of UK govenment jobs have been out-sourced, or in other words the service has been privatized forcing the employee to take on a new contract with lower wages,lower pension( if any), less favourable conditions or be replaced entirely.

Pressumably the author of this article is iin favour of the austerity measures, both present and planned, and will contrive an article ( the water canons were not purchased solely for the purpose of these demonstration) to condemn the UK workers and Unions, and to promote such austerity measures.

So oligarchs destroy the private working class, then there is no tax revenue, then they destroy the public working class..Do you f*ing people see a plan here? There is no money, because they make sure there's no money at least for workers...Go after that bitch Queen and all those useless fuckers...

water shortages all over the place and they decide to shoot people with water. kind of rubbing it in. meanwhile the NON-government workers have their nose to the grindstone and are keeping their mouths shut. the brits could save money by getting non-government workers to shoot the water - i bet they would do it for free for the lulz

" What happens when they cut the salary of the guy running the water cannon ? "

The explanation given to him is that the cuts are the fault of the people in front of him. He asks for more water and a bigger canon that he be able to do his job with greater thoroughness (hate) and conviction, assuring, he hope, that he retains his job. Buying canons is good business for the canon sellers, brokers, shipping company etc..

"Public employees do not care where the money comes from, they refuse cuts and demand their pensions. "

So Tyler, based on your understanding of the widespread fraud and plunder being perpetrated throughout the financial system, the de-funding of the real economy and the greed-driven extravaganza of investment in non -productive and almost laughable Ponzi schemes, you can still blame people for organizing to demand that the pensions they were promised be paid? And imply that *they* are the ones driven by greed? Because they are working for "The Government" and therefore shouldn't exist?

Could everyone on this list who has lost a pension and their job, or had much or most of their pension lost or their pay slashed, please raise your hand?

OK Tyler, take a look. Then, can you explain to us why this was bad but what is being done to Public Sector workers is OK?

As we watch the ongoing undermining and collapse of our financial system and look for ways to reset and rebuild something sounder than what was lost, we need to be looking for allies. This may mean letting go of the Left/Right labels. If it's leftist to hate layoffs, pay cuts, the plundering of pension funds, robbing people's savings, and banksters blowing massive bubbles to get rich then plunging the world economy into depressions, there would be a lot of leftists on this site.

Is it leftist to believe that an honest day's work doing what is supposed to be necessary work deserves an honest day's pay, and that contracts should be honored? Is a day's work repairing a road socialist and bad if the government pays the wage out of taxes, good if a private company is building the road for profit, and somewhere between if the government hires a contractor?

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, "right" and "left", true patriots both, walked the halls of Congress, sometimes together, with copies of the same Constitution in their shirt pockets, and fought with the same corrupt party leaders, bureaucrats, lobbyists and war-makers. For all their differences. both took pride in moving beyond the right/left dichotomy, reaching for allies wherever they could find them. Theirs was not the endless no-win wars between the Fox News and MSNBC stables of pundits and wise-crackers, paid for from the same corporate troughs.

As Dennis explained in the 2008 Dem Primary debates during the few minutes he was allowed, it's no longer about Right/Left, but about Top/Bottom. And about laws and structures, public and private, designed to suck all the money out of our pockets and funnel it upwards in an ever-growing flood.

The public workers in England are still organized and still able and willing to fight back. You may come from a tradition of loving them or of hating them. You may have grown up believing that Social Security was Communism and Unions the Kremlin's fifth column. Or you may have grown up loving and believing in unions and hating all rich people. But as we look around now, is it not time to let go of that and think about how we can work together? We who understand what is happening, what is being done to us, the debacle that awaits us, should we not applaud them for their resistance, whatever our station in life is and however misguided their strategy may seem, and think about how we can make common cause with them?

The only thing separating you from the public worker, the carpenter, the welfare mother next door or at your nearest poverty cluster (guaranteed to be within a few miles) may be the six months supplies you're hoarding, which will last a month after you're done sharing with all the people you can't say no to. Then we're all in the same boat.

Thank you for your post. I was appalled to read this, and even more shocked this is on ZH, of all places. Yes, let's demonize the pathetic, unworthy, terrible public sector workers because God knows THEY'RE the real enemies here.

I work as an attorney in a private law firm but I hardly find my employment in the private sector to be some kind of cudgel to be used against public employees, many of whom are some of the finest, hardworking people I know. On the contrary, I've seen in my own life many people get ahead in the private sector PRECISELY due to nepotism, brown-nosing, and cutting backroom deals. In the government, there are typically much more meritocratic rules governing hiring and firing. At least here in the States, that is.

The writer of this article should be ashamed of himself. This guy would have been cheerleading water-cannon use against civil rights protestors in Birmingham during the 60s as well judging by his attitude.

The myth of the public sector worker is that everyone in the private sector are millionaires rolling around in a bunch of cash. This could not be further from the truth. Behind inherited wealth and the most successful in private sector, public employees are the best paid workers all the world over. Cut the pensions, cut their wages, cut their benefits and lower everybody else's taxes.

Unions and pols collaborate together to get said pol elected and is returned the favor by making on promises they know later down the road can't be kept like increasing salary.

They don't bargain in good faith and use their clout to strong arm demands.

These are the demands they made for their contract so why would we have sympathy for them milking the tax payers because they know they can?

Our town cave in to our teachers union giving then 15% increase over 3 years during the crash. They will not take any concessions. It is not a surprised most pensions in my town are six figures w/o including medical.

You're about to become a pinata for the Oligarchical Super-Rich. What better place to display beating the lesser folks beaten into submission. Your lords buggered you for generations. Why not, let's watch you bounce puppet-like off the tarmac on the world news! By then you will have been classified "domestic terrorist" or disgrudled. Don't ask for more gruel, you're losing your national health care because you deserve to die in squalor as a peasant. Forget notions of justice and egailitarianism or human rights. Bounce, bounce on the tarmac, little people are so fun to injure and abuse!

"The British government has just invested in water cannons because they are fearing the rising tide of civil unrest as austerity is forcing the reduction of state workers and their pensions... Prime Minister Cameron has no choice for this is the collapse of socialism."

So true, Mr. Armstrong. The British government should also invest in ubiquitous mass surveilance, internet censorship and brutal police supression of uprisings as well. After all, it's the "collapse of socialism" and the ends justify the means, right? It's well worth Cameron's efforts to impose a totalitarian, oligarchic state on the British people as long as it gets rid of that evil "socialism" thingy that paid people decent wages and provided good health care for so many decades. As long as the British elites can continue flipping real estate and molesting children, thank God for the water-cannons because the alternative is SO, SO much worse.

Socialism can only supply benefits to no more than 50% of the population. How the fuck do you get more money in the hands of certain people? By stealing it from others stupid. Oh, and borrow it so that future generations have to pay as well.

Yes good rebuttal. Speaking as a Brit and reading alot of unrelated bullshit posted by some US commenters, including this article writer. Its not the unions, its most every fucker here that hates the establishment. The fuckers have been raping and murdering children in care homes. Others in the know kept it a secret for blackmail purposes. How many people have been bumped off because of this elite cover up? They fucking steal babies from the womb now as well. I'm beginning to feel David Icke might not be so mad.

So they get their pay rise in the end / assured financial promises all to be paid for by the real poor in the private sector being paid the minimum wage. So as a UK citizen in the private sector I do not care about these lot anymore, only in it for themselves while those poorer are made to suffer under current government policy.

How about this, you only pay for the services you use at market prices and then all those not needed, services not required can be made redundant.

That would be a game changer, like no kids of your own you are no longer made to pay for others children. Or you only really use the waste collection service because you are at work you do not have time for any of the other crap that is if you can afford it.

According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices.http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf

THE PERFECT STORM (see p. 59 onwards)

The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf

Whole school system needs reforming. For a start a lot of the work could be done online, from home. Tracking software/webcams could be used to make sure the kids are doing the work, low level administrators could run such a system. This would save Government a fortune by freeing up buildings, say if the kids only have to go in twice a week, then if the schools opened on Saturdays this would triple the capacity of each building.

Highly paid teachers could be replaced by software monitoring progress, good teachers broadcasting via webcams and commercial gym membership given to each child. How much would that save, were talking millions each year and the kids would be better educated and less indoctrinated.

However, everyone in the UK will get a job and a 50% salary increase soon because there is an election next year. After the election unemployment will rise and prices will go up 80% to claw the vote bribe money back.